Cable and satellite providers offer hundreds of television (TV) channels to their subscribers. Typically, a viewer uses a standard TV input device to control a TV in order to select a desired channel from the multitudes of channels for viewing. Standard TV input devices include remote controls, wireless keyboards, onscreen guides, or a combination thereof. In response to a viewer selecting a channel by using a standard input TV device, the TV changes the current channel being displayed by the TV to the selected channel for viewing by the viewer.
This procedure works well if the viewer knows which channel the viewer desires to view. A problem is that many times the viewer does not know which channel to select because the viewer is not sure of the content being shown by the channels or the viewer may want to surf through the channels to view the available content for entertainment. In this instance, the viewer uses a standard TV input device to scan through the channels until a desired channel is located. For example, the viewer physically controls a remote control by pressing up/down channel keys to enter a first channel, then a second channel, then a third channel, and so on until a desired channel is located. The viewer may also control the remote control by entering channel numbers in a sequential, random, or logical order to scan through the channels until a desired channel is located. A problem with this procedure is that the viewer must physically control the remote control or other standard TV input device to scan through the channels until a desired channel is located. As can be appreciated, if there are many available channels to scan through then physically controlling a standard TV input device to scan through the channels in order to locate programming of interest is inefficient and takes much attention from the viewer.